


In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

by werepope (quiteparadise)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Abandonment of half-formed ideas, I am so sorry, Idea dump, M/M, This is how my brain works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-04 02:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2906180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiteparadise/pseuds/werepope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of things that will never be written.</p><p>Ideas that will read like stories, & parts of stories that will read like half-cocked drivel.  Because that's precisely what it is.  I am cleaning out my writing folder for the new year.  Some of this is too good to dump entirely.  Very little of it, though.</p><p>Presented with apologies but no editing or proof-reading.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You're So Hip

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Terry Pratchett.

Liam is a twenty-two-year-old pop singer/songwriter recently imported to NYC from across the pond amongst very public and publicity-centric whispers of greatness to come.

Zayn is a thirty-year-old man-about-the-industry, a recognizable name and face, who lit onto the scene with the artistry of personality – he's a writer, artist, model, and fashion icon – a modern Warhol who has collaborated with everyone from Njenna Reddd Foxxx to Gaga. He's also openly gay, and that wouldn't be a problem except that American society at large likes their homosexuals to be in committed relationships, easier to accept that way, and Zayn has been linked to every man he's ever been alone in a room with, but never as anything more than a bit of fun.

In this world of all publicity being good publicity, male artists and actors and would-be's have sought him for this titter of speculation on the celeb rag sites: Malik's meat of the day. Zayn suffers it with the knowledge that they're using each other mutually – their film is coming out in three weeks and his latest book (a truly pretentious collection of b&w photos of artists and trend setters from his contact list) hits the shelves in twice that.

And besides, it's not like he sleeps with even a quarter of them. Most of them aren't even gay, for god's sake.

Liam and Zayn are introduced at one of those miserable lower manhattan parties that anyone praisedly under-appreciated or avant-garde is on the guest list of.

Liam is young and a bit overwhelmed by the sheer force of bullshit going on at this shindig. It's clear that, in the month leading up to the drop of his second album, his management is trying to shoe him into the ever-desirable underground scene, at least make him a few connections there, legitimize him in the way his big four record label can't.

Zayn introduces him to some people in attendance who are also in the music industry, because he's a notorious figure in this convoluted scene but he's not cruel. So he does his duty and lets Liam hover near his elbow before passing Liam off into hands capable of handling him with the kid gloves of shared interests.

He's not surprised to see him later that week at a launch party/runway show for a clothing line. He also isn't surprised by the way they're pushed shoulder-to-shoulder for some of the obligatory photos, or the way Liam puts an arm around him. He's a bit surprised the boy doesn't try harder, though. He should be putting his hand at Zayn's waist instead of the friendly territory of his shoulder – that's not going to make a single headline.

What a shock, they meet again. A gallery show this time, where Zayn spots Liam staring at a week long video of mold growing on a loaf of artisan bread on a tile floor, projected large on one of the gallery walls. He looks duly perplexed, then suitably relieved when Zayn steps up beside him to explain: a commentary on white society's organic, fair trade privilege – and not a very good one, either.

But Liam does throw him a curve ball then. He thanks Zayn. For being so nice to him. He's in well over his head, he says, sheepish but not ashamed. He really doesn't understand this at all, he says, and Zayn looked out for him at that party where they met.

And Zayn thinks, my god, he doesn't even know that his PR team is shoving him up against Zayn hard and hoping for bruises to show after. Doesn't know Zayn's reputation, maybe, for artfully tarnishing the reputations of young men who need a bit of the right spotlight.

And Zayn is notorious but he's not cruel, so he explains, because Liam has the right to know most of it, at least. And Liam's surprised and maybe a bit disgusted, if that look on his face is to be believed, and Zayn smiles at him and kisses his cheek and tells him to keep himself clean. Far too cute to be dragged through the mud, this one – which he also tells him.

So many weeks later, Liam's album drops and there are enough of those artsy, edgy faces at the party to give the whole thing an air of legitimacy, just like his team wanted. And Zayn doesn't go near him the whole night, stays at the elbow of a lovely young Turkish model who Ford is hoping to get recognized by the American market. But yes, he looks. Of course he does. Liam is the man of the hour. And if Zayn likes looking, so what.

They see each other a few times over the next few months.

Liam embarks on an American tour and Zayn gets invited to see his performance in the city – Liam is charming and surprisingly at ease on stage. Zayn declines the invitation to come backstage both before and after the show.

They attend the same New Years party, where Zayn is accompanied by a painter of some talent but very little personality, and Liam's date is a very pretty dancer who could, Zayn thinks, stand to smile a bit more, dating up as she clearly is. And they don't exchange so much as a hello, but there is eye contact across rooms that feels pointed, that lingers a bit, communicating nothing more than presence and awareness.

Later in January a mutual acquaintance hosts a birthday party where they are both in attendance. They have those now, mutual acquaintances, because it turns out that Liam fits in, can be friends with just about anyone. And this time they do say hello, and Liam touches his elbow as they talk, and Zayn thinks ah, well because it seems Liam has learned to play the game in the interim, that he doesn't mind a bit of bad publicity.

Zayn tolerates these clean, straight boys using him because it's mutually beneficial. He always has something up the pipeline. But his next project is distant, still in the infancy of monetary negotiations, a collection of graphic tees for Neff featuring graffiti-style art by Malik himself, nothing to promote at the moment. Liam is working on press for his album, dropping another single soon probably. And that's not as mutual as Zayn likes, but they group up in lines for pictures to be taken and Zayn curls his fingers into Liam's shoulder hard enough to rumple up his denim shirt, smiles at the camera while he slats his gaze at Liam's profile.

Innocuous. A touch and a gaze, neither lasting more than three seconds, but Zayn is unnervingly good at being photographed in seemingly compromising situations, and by Tuesday there's a ripple of rumor, a throw-away headline on a gossip site – Beauty & the Brit: Liam Payne and Zayn Malik Collaborating? It's more than Zayn usually gives away for free.

Life goes on. They see each other rarely but steadily.

Liam shows up at New York Fashion Week, the guest of Varvatos or some other completely expected menswear designer. Zayn walks through a sea of people to touch him on the ribs, hook his chin on Liam's shoulder, swaying close to breathe "what are you doing here?" – champagne softening his accusing disbelief into a smirking fondness. Liam smiles and they spend the time between one show and another just standing near, listing on the tide of other people's conversations.

Liam goes to a new broadway show. Zayn does not see him there, he doesn't do Broadway, but he does get photos of the evening tweeted to him dozens of times over: Liam looking sleek and old-fashioned and terribly British in a black wool paletot, holding hands with his dancer.

Zayn uses his twitter account in fits and starts. He'll forget it exists for months at a time and then tweet incessantly for an hour, about the sad state of his Brooklyn neighborhood, and why designer dogs are a ridiculous concept, and the constant debate over whether or not to buy a television. Today he looks at a handful of photos of Liam in overlong black wool and tweets:

I cannot fathom the depth of your closet Payne . Let me dress you next time

#PanyesCloset trends within the hour.

Liam begins his European tour and they don't lay eyes on each other for a month until their schedules coincide in Milan. Zayn is there to visit a photographer friend whose invitations he'd been ignoring for the better part of a year. Quite the coincidence, isn't it? And how nice of Liam's people to offer him a ticket when he posts a photo of himself at the Piazza del Duomo to his Instagram.

This time he does go backstage, after, just to thank Liam for the ticket. Liam is shirtless, freshly showered. Still damp between his shoulder blades, Zayn discovers, when they slot side by side to be photographed and his fingers drag up Liam's spine. After – when Liam has put on a shirt and they've discussed the next few weeks of dates and cities – Liam kisses his cheek and grips his waist and says: "Have dinner with me?" And Zayn shouldn't, but he does anyway.


	2. Keep on Walking

Being a teenager was hard on everyone. It felt especially hard for Liam Payne, whose particular combination of awkward, shy, and poor made him the pariah of his year. (Liam's earnest. He cares. He tries. They were aways going to eat him alive, really.)

It's a big deal when he gets invited to a party. He is fifteen years old and he only gets invited because the girl is new, because she didn't know better, because she read his sweetness as a good thing instead of a pox, until they informed her otherwise. And Liam is sweet, too much so for his own good. He sees opportunity instead of the potential for humiliation.

Almost as soon as he gets there, the girl pulls him aside and tells him he should probably go. She's nice about it, though. She's quiet and almost apologetic. Liam thanks her, because he was raised right, because he recognizes a kindness even when it hurts, and leaves. He doesn't want his parents to know he's failed so incredibly miserably, though. His mom had been so hopeful, so proud. So he sits on the steps for a while, chin on his hands, and tries to be positive, tries not to cry.

Being a teenager was not as hard for Zayn, who knew to keep his head down and his guard up and swing at anything that came in too close. Now he's twenty, safely away from the vast majority of that bullshit. He's twenty years old and in uni and out with his friends and very pleasantly drunk.

But this isn't Zayn's story. Liam doesn't know any of that yet. He only knows this:

A group of people walk by, conversation loud and warmly overlapping. Liam watches their feet as they pass. Trainers and boots and a pair of glittery red heels.

"Hey."

Liam had kind of been hoping they would keep going, but one pair of boots stops and doesn't move to catch up with his friends, who are moving on without him. Liam dares a glance up and there he is. Lean and dark-haired and gorgeous in a way that hurts, maybe especially right now. Liam looks back down quickly.

"Can I tell you something?" he asks, leaning down, voice soft and low. "Just between us?"

A ticklish soft drag of knuckles under Liam's chin tilt his head up and the guy kisses him. He smells like beer and cigarettes and aftershave, and his lips are dry, and it's stubblier than Liam ever thought it would be, kissing a boy, but it's also over very quickly.

"Keep your chin up," the guy says. Whispers it against his mouth. The pad of his thumb sweeps under Liam's bottom lip as he pulls away. Down the street his friends have realized he's lagging behind and call for him. They don't sound scandalized or laughing, just irritated: "come on, Zayn!"

When Liam dares another look up at him, Zayn is backing up, smiling at him, his tongue pressed behind his teeth.

 

Liam remembers this encounter for a long time. It was his first kiss, but that seems so paltry in comparison to the rest of it. To the up close and personal realization that there are beautiful young men out there who kiss strangers. That the best advice can be given to you in a whisper, a secret shared in public, on what had been the worst day of your life.

Liam is twenty. He's attending university part time, working at a restaurant bar in the evenings. He's still trying to figure some of the important things out, like what the hell he wants to do with his life versus what he can do, but he's not overly worried about the bridge between the two.

He recognizes Zayn as soon as he sees him.

He sits at the bar, setting his phone on the wood. He touches the button every few minutes to check the time. He orders a beer. Liam is not really disappointed that he doesn't get recognized in turn. It's been five years, give or take, and it had been a defining moment in Liam's life but for Zayn it had been a lark, a tipsy act of kindness on a random and forgettable night out with his friends.

Zayn drinks his beer and checks his phone and sighs. He pulls his wallet out to pay his bill. Liam is twenty and there is a very good chance he will never get this opportunity again, so he gathers up all the bravery he has in stores and – watching Zayn's long, fine fingers dig a few notes from his beat up wallet – says:

"No one would stand you up."

Zayn looks up at him, paused, caught off guard. With his head still tipped down, the slightly startled glance comes from beneath his lashes. Liam feels something he can't identify. Like receiving a punch you never saw coming, maybe. Like kissing a random stranger.

"I think I did the standing up," Zayn says. His sheepishness is disorienting. "We were supposed to meet at eight."

It's well past nine. Liam winces sympathetically, not meaning it in the slightest.

"Flowers," he advises. "Don't call. Just show up with flowers and apologies."

Zayn laughs in a way that isn't amused so much as resigned. "Reckon someone's ever been killed with flowers before?"

"That bad?"

"Pretty bad. Third time."

Liam refills his glass. "Maybe just a text, then."

Zayn is habitually late. It's not intentional, he just functions within his own time zone. Within his own time stream, maybe, where hours move at a different and erratic pace. He also has a tendency to hit the snooze button more times than is appropriate, but that isn't his fault, just a bit of shoddy wiring in his brain.

Zayn was supposed to be meeting a bloke he's been out with a handful times. The dates had been good despite the slow starts, or good enough to get him another chance and then another. Three times is just too many for any reasonable person to bear. He understands completely.

Zayn isn't terribly upset. He does text the guy to apologize, but then he doesn't look at his phone again for a long time, even when it buzzes against the polished wood of the bar, too preoccupied leaning forward to Liam all of that and more. So much more.

He's a graphic designer. He works on magazine layouts which is apparently just as exciting as it sounds, only worse, because he works at a company that primarily publishes art magazines, so that everyone has an opinion or, worse, a vision. He wanted to be an artist himself – a real artist, he protests, when Liam tries to point out that he has an art degree, doesn't he? He wanted to be a comic book artist, specifically, but, well. Shit happens.

In turn Liam tells him that he's getting a degree in physiotherapy which he's only a quarter sure he wants, that his last boyfriend was months ago, and that if he weren't at work right now he'd probably be home rereading Valiant's Hawkeye. So there.

They talk for a while about DC versus Marvel and the MCU versus the comics and whether or not they're really going to try to pull of a Civil War storyline in the third Captain America movie.


	3. Brave & Beauty

Liam's one in an army of soldiers come back from Afghanistan when the UK pulls out of the war. Zayn's the boyfriend who has picked up a modeling contract & a coke habit since Liam left two years ago. But that's not a big deal. That just for fun. Not like Liam's drinking or his anti-anxiety meds in oversize bottles because the army gives that shit to you in bulk when you carry a gun, any quantity necessary to keep you numbed up.

Liam comes back and Zayn's there with his parents and both his sisters to pick him up from the airport, and there's tears and clutching on all counts, and the family stays in the city for the weekend and Liam is back so everything is perfect. Until the weekend is over. Then all of a sudden they're both staring down all the shit that piled up around them in the two years that Liam was gone.

Liam feels like shit for fucking around with other lads while he was in Afghanistan even though they agreed about that. They both agreed not to try the celibacy thing 'cause it wouldn't work and that'd be worse, right? And Liam resents the meds almost as much as he resents needing them. And Liam drinks so much he can't get it up half the time. And Liam finds a stash of coke in the apartment and pitches a fit and knows Zayn is lying when he empties it in the toilet and promises that's the end of it – 'cause it was just a bit of fun while Liam was gone, but he's back now, no need, all gone, see?

(It's not as easy as that. They have a quiet, half-careful argument about it wherein Zayn tries to blow it off as no big deal, Liam is disappointed, and Zayn is more afraid of getting rid of the coke than putting that expression on his boyfriend's face. Zayn's reaction is addict all over, which is rattling like a punch to the temple, but when he gets to the "blame" portion of his argument – not different than your – he stops himself. Reins all of his fucked up bullshit in. Because Liam's chest caves in at that, and Zayn had meant the drinking not the pills, but it doesn't matter. The coke, the excuses, the whole fucking argument doesn't matter as much as Liam, who left Afghanistan wounded in some deep down part of him that Zayn can't see or get to, and who came back to find land mines in their shared apartment.)

Liam has night terrors so Liam has insomnia or drinks himself to sleep. Zayn tries. Zayn is supportive in that enabling way where he's afraid of putting his foot down because he doesn't want to break anything when he does. Zayn picks up a pamphlet from VA about a support group for soldiers that he never takes out of his pocket, and he googles the drug names on the pill bottles, and he calls Liam's parents about going up to visit them for a bit because Liam is more okay with them around even if he's just not letting himself be as broken as he is.

Zayn tries to roll with it because he loves Liam too much not to. But he's not brave or sure or qualified enough to get his hands in Liam's chest and fix him. And every time they don't fuck, every time Liam gives up on sleep to sit on the couch, every time Liam is drunk enough to be openly wrecked, they are one step closer to the whole fucking thing falling in on them.

Liam hates a lot. He hates the nightmares and the jump-scare reaction of a loud noise and the fact that he is failing at handling this. He hates that Zayn is failing at it too, the tight knit of their reunion so full of holes they're more bare edges than join. But he doesn't resent Zayn for that, just himself. Always, always himself at the end of the day. That's okay, though. Liam deserves a lot more hate than he can heap on himself. If he were really set on self-destruction he'd want Zayn's too, that'd be the final coffin nail, but he can't do that. Can't stand to hurt Zayn enough to drive him away. So after every slight, every snappy conversation, Liam reels Zayn in and apologizes, hating himself enough in those moments that Zayn doesn't need to and sorry, so sorry, I love you, I'm sorry – forgive me, please, someone has to.

Niall calls. Niall wants to see him. It's been a while, mate – eight months exactly – Louis will be there too, bringing that lad of his, the infamous Harry that they heard about non-fucking-stop. Niall knows neither of them have been to Ireland which is a fucking crime so just come on, last week of July, you can bring your lad too.

They went through it together, the three of them. Waded through so much sand and shit together. Training the Afghan army, remember, that last month, Magrib, Jesus. Locked down in that house, nothing but flat and green for a fucking mile in any direction except one line of trees where the Taliban were safe and sound, content to just trade fire for fucking hours, the pop of ammunition breaking the fucking sound barrier. And they were going to run out of water long before either of them ran out of bullets but the Afghans, holy shit, yeah, remember, high as fucking kites on hash the whole time, not a care in the fucking world.

Zayn's never heard any of this. Sure as hell never thought he'd hear about it in a pub in Mullingar, Ireland, Liam just two pints in and laughing his ass off, a hand on Zayn's shoulder to keep him here, as if he would walk away from Liam now.

Niall is exactly the kind of person who could pull Liam out of his head, goofy and earnest and far too innocent-looking to be throwing around the kind of horror stories he is with a grin. Louis looks too delicate to hold up a pint with authority, forget a rifle, but there's a fierce edge to his casual sass that screams soldier, protective and battled.

Louis took one look at Zayn, shook his hand, and told Liam good on ya without the least bit of shame. Zayn can't help but wonder – Liam did say he'd been with a few of the lads – but then Zayn meets Harry and he knows it doesn't matter. Even if they did, there's no want lingering enough to make a dent in Louis&Harry, joined at the hip, bravely overt in rural Ireland. And that makes Zayn wonder other things, but Liam keeps him right here, touches him when Zayn's attention has been on Louis or Niall or Harry for too long, right here, and he doesn't laugh when Louis unleashes the sass about it, just puts his arm around Zayn's shoulder and shrugs, yeah well.

They spend five days in Ireland, a hotel because Niall's flat can't hold them, paid for with Zayn's money – another thing they aren't talking about, Liam's inability to hold a job, another thing he beats himself up over when he can't sleep. Niall drags them to pubs and to the coast for two days, camping of all things, where Niall and Louis and Liam settle into the quiet away from the city like unwinding something brittle from around their throats. They sit around a campfire late late late, drinking more than talking, and Zayn falls asleep on the sand, Liam's silence an assurance instead of a weight.

Back home Liam talks around the idea of moving when their lease is up. Zayn's job is in the city, he doesn't, he can't, but they have a conversation about it instead of a touch-and-go almost fight, Liam sitting on the kitchen counter and Zayn braced for this being the thing that ends them. And wouldn't that hurt? Wouldn't that be a big cosmic kick in the balls, if they fell apart because Liam getting better hinges on something Zayn can't give him?

They don't come to a final decision. They don't solve anything. There isn't a solution to this, but it feels a little less like getting their hearts squeezed in a fist every time, and maybe that's not good but it's something.


	4. Baby baby baby

Zayn is a pop star of some sort. In a band with Niall and Louis maybe. Who knows. Zayn is nominally straight and has a string of girlfriends with whom he repeats the same pattern of chaotic destruction via so-called "good intentions."

Liam is his long-suffering homosexual best friend. Liam is normal. Holds a normal job, has largely normal relationships. He is long-suffering because Zayn. Because Zayn is always trying to drape his scrawny hide all over Liam. Because Zayn goes on tour and sends selfies of himself being hangdog sad in ridiculous, amazing places -- Zayn calls this photography experiment the "sad w/o liam" collection; their friends call it "manipulative codependency". Because Zayn calls Liam "baby baby baby." Because Zayn gets drunk and/or high and puts his tongue in Liam's mouth regularly.

They have known each other since they were teenagers. They are not yet so far past being teenagers. It should go without saying that Liam is damningly in love with Zayn.

Zayn's latest girlfriend is Sara. Liam likes Sara. Liam has liked all of Zayn's girlfriends. He has very good taste in women and his ability to drive them all away is a testament to his awfulness, not in any way a reflection on them. He has it down to an art, he really does.

Step 1. Be audaciously attractive.  
Step 2. Be somehow able to pull very pretty, intelligent, level-headed girls who are too good for him despite his audacious attractiveness but who somehow adore him anyway.  
Step 3. Date said girl for short period of time.  
Step 4. Override her level-headedness and convince her to move in with him.  
Step 5. Drive her up one wall and down the other in every manner imaginable.  
Step 6. Be rightfully broken up with by way of a huge argument in which his heart is broken and she is freed, finally, from his awfulness.  
Step 7. Repeat ad libitum.

Liam would admit, to anyone who inquired, that he has been a part of the catalyst for the break-up argument twice. No one is inclined to inquire, however, because everyone who cares knows Zayn's pattern and stopped caring so many girlfriends ago.

Case in which Liam has knowingly been the cause of the break-up argument: Two o'clock in the morning, in the hallway outside Zayn's flat. Zayn is very drunk. Liam, not as drunk, has escorted him home because he is a good friend. Because he is not a sober friend, he has allowed rather more of the "tongue in Liam's mouth" portion of their relationship than is in any way proper. He knows this but he is weak. When the door of Zayn's flat -- shared at the time by Angie -- opens and Angie sees Zayn's tongue in Liam's mouth, the break-up argument is so long in coming it's practically a relief.

The story well and truly kicks off because Zayn, yet again drunk in yet another club, loses his phone. Has his phone stolen. Semantics. This is a worry because Zayn is, after all, a pop star and pop stars always have something or other on their phone that is terrible. Zayn doesn't think it's particularly terrible. Aside from all the pictures of him being comically sad at the camera in front of the Statue of Liberty and the Coliseum and with his back turned to five-thousand screaming fans, nothing on his phone is particularly incriminating.

Okay there is one picture of him from the waist down, taken in a mussed hotel bed, legs bent and knees apart, the shape of his erection plainly visible through his joggers. That's pretty bad, but it's no more skin than has been photographed before and plastered on celeb gossip sites.

Alright, yeah, there is also a picture of him driving, one hand on the wheel, the other tucked mostly out of sight in the open button fly of Sara's jeans. But Sara took that picture, not him. And it's clear to see, by the way he's leaning forward to check his blind spot, that he was paying more attention to the road than fingering his girlfriend.

Unsurprisingly, these are the photos that get sold from his stolen phone. There is the usual and expected kerfuffle in the press and with the angry parents of his fans, who believe that he should be a pillar of moral integrity instead of a person because their children sigh over pictures of him a lot.

Surprisingly, there is also kerfuffle with Liam, who reads him the riot act about being more responsible and maybe not getting plastered in public and sweatpants dick, Zayn, really? and he has the nerve -- the nerve to have this argument with Zayn in front of his boyfriend, Charlie, who Zayn makes a point of being superior to.

Liam is furious and Zayn is furious and Charlie, hovering in the kitchenette, looks like this argument has been so long in coming that it's a relief.

They go to their corners and lick their wounds and become decreasingly furious. Zayn, damningly in love with Liam, is the one to break down and haul his sorry bones to Liam to apologize and drape himself on him and call him "baby baby baby" and be okay again. But Liam seems to have decided that they shouldn't be okay again. That he's better off without Zayn. That getting rid of Zayn is some kind of personal growth experiment gone right – and that is not fucking alright.

When they fight this time, Zayn is furious and Liam is gobsmacked and Charlie is increasingly horrified.

Zayn tells Liam that he's an asshole. Zayn tells Liam that he's a self-righteous asshole. Zayn tells Liam that what? it's only okay if he gets irresponsible when Liam's there 'cause that's his excuse for jerking Zayn around? He tells Liam to stop playing at being friends with his girlfriends, too, Liam doesn't care about them when he's got his tongue in Zayn's mouth. He tells Liam that he's an asshole, seriously and fuck him, and that Zayn has been falling all over himself since he was sixteen to get Liam to stop treating him like he's Liam's favorite disaster area and actually fucking love him.

This is the catalyst for the fight in which Charlie and Liam break up spectacularly, yelling between rooms and rather unsoft things thrown and a punch that has been a long, long time in coming.

Liam is hangdog, the carpet swept out from under him and a bruise on his cheekbone that is probably going to blacken his eye. Zayn gets a bag of peas from the freezer and wraps it in a dishtowel and says "oh, baby baby baby."


	5. Americana

In the middle of the twentieth century, Gaines had three industries. A glass factory, a glove factory, and touristry. Well. "Touristry." Technically speaking they had the aid of the American highway system, which had deemed to run a road through Gaines on its way from the Atlantic to the Pacific, granting the town enough traffic to build two motels.

The glove factory went out to business in the sixties. The glass factory outlasted it by a few years. The interstate was built in the seventies.

Now Gaines doesn't have much of anything. There's a car lot and a drive in movie theatre and a chain pharmacy, which caused all kinds of stir when it was built – a Walgreens of their very own, weren't they just on the map now. The town survives, somehow, clinging to the lower edge of that vanishing middle class by sheer refusal to be anything less.

How the Maliks ended up here all those years ago is a mystery fueled by general disinterest. They came. They saw. They settled in. Two generations later and it's in their blood now. The tragically undersized library with its heavy waft of mildew. The honest to god brick roads up the two worst hills in the whole town, pretty but sketchy in the wetter months, grit-your-teeth-and-pray come winter. The Holiday Inn, which survived where the motels did not, probably because they sold passes for the pool.

If Zayn were more introspective, more retrospective, he'd be giving the circumstances that wound them up here some serious thought. He has plenty of reason to these days, living in Dada's house, sifting through a solid lifetime of stuff that has no place in Gaines. No other place in Gaines, that is. He's tried. He literally can't give the stuff away.

Gentrification can't come soon enough, so far as he's concerned. Then there'd be an audience for this crap. Hand-woven musalla and two turkish coffee sets and how many Urdu-English dictionaries can one man own? Fuck.

Zayn doesn't have the time for this. Yes, okay, he agreed that he'd do it. He was being evicted from his shitty garage apartment. Living in Dada's house was better than living on his parents' couch for however many weeks while he tried to find something else. And someone had to do it, didn't they? The girls were all too tender-hearted. They'd take ages at it, stopping every ten minutes to cry. Zayn could handle it.

He cried a few times in the beginning. No shame in that. Finding Dada's reading glasses fallen between the cushion and arm of his recliner. The smell of his aftershave. The photos of his wedding to Dadi, who died when Zayn was eleven, locked in perpetual black and white beauty. But he's over that now. It's been almost two months. He's more or less immune to the sudden jog of grief at this point. Now he just wants it over with.

He'd make a lot more headway if he could dedicate real time to it, but he has a job. And that's kept him feeling sane more than once, the obligation to get out of the house for eight hours at a time, get away from the dust. Hard to be particularly grateful, though, when his job is also the thing keeping him from just getting it all done. And if he drags his feet some days because getting rid of Dada's things feels like getting rid of the last legacy of him – fuck it. He's allowed to deal with this as he goes.

Not as if he's got his family or an estate lawyer banging down the door to sort it all out. No one's going to be fighting anyone for the house. Dada owned it part and parcel before Zayn was born and, besides that, it's seen better days. Much, much better days. If they'd realized earlier, any of them, they would have done something about it. But Dada was proud, yelling down any implication that he couldn't handle the upkeep of the yard, of the cleaning, of himself.

Zayn's proud, too. There's evidence all over the place that Dada hadn't been capable. Worse, that he'd tried and failed. It seizes something up in Zayn's guts to think that the old man had been this fragile, this far gone. He doesn't breathe a word of it, not even to his father, just cleans up the messes and swallows the guilt that he really, honestly, didn't know. That he should have.

Today is not a cleaning day. He cannot handle another fucking cleaning day. Today is a day to roll out of bed at ten because he can, turn on music, eat breakfast standing up in the kitchen, and wear absolutely no pants. He has earned a day of pantslessness.

He's at the breakfast part of the day, half a piece of toast crammed in his mouth, when the doorbell rings.

One of his sisters, probably. Waliyha has taken to coming by more and more often, possibly out of concern for his mental health, possibly out of concern that he will get botulism from eating two-month-old leftovers. Probably, though, she comes over because there is always beer to be had and because Zayn doesn't give a shit that she's not old enough to drink, so long as she doesn't drive.

So Zayn doesn't put pants on to open the door. Doesn't even take the toast out of his mouth. His sisters witnessed him going through puberty, okay? They are one hundred percent immune to Zayn's awfulness.

But it's not Waliyha standing on the sagging porch. It's not Doniya either. In fact, it's not any blood relation whatsoever. Which does make the pantslessness a bit more awkward. He owns that.

He has to pull the bread from between his teeth to speak. Nothing to be done about the mouthful except soldier on around it. His mother would smack him. Hell, Dada would smack him.

"Yeah?"

The not-a-Malik doesn't seem to know what to do about his lack of pants and manners. For a moment he just stares. But Zayn swallows, finally, and opens his mouth to be even less polite, and that jars life into the man.

"Sorry," he says, because he is apparently one of those people who projects. "Didn't mean to interrupt. I heard – Well, I heard that – I'm sorry for your loss."

At least Zayn isn't the only one contributing awkward to this interaction. It's validating, in a strange way. "Thanks."

"I was wondering if you'd given any consideration to selling the house."

Zayn stuffs the other half of the toast in his mouth, steps back, and shuts the door.

He's glad he was rude, now. Fucking vulture.


	6. Fight me, bitch.

Liam prefers pubs to clubs. People recognize him in both, but in pubs they ask him where the medal is and pat him on the back and offer to buy him a pint if he'll sack so and so in the next bout. In clubs people want to hang on him for pictures and squeeze his arms. The crowd in pubs reminds him of his dad. The crowd in clubs reminds him of getting drunk in university and being miserably alone.

He's on his third drink. Not only is it too early to be on his third drink, but he's not supposed to be drinking at all. He has a weight and a knife edge form to maintain with just a few days before his next match, which means his caloric intake is air tight right now, all protein and no fat. His dietician can never know.

His phone buzzes against his thigh and he doesn't know but he hopes, ducking away from the table and the noise of the nearby game machines to answer it.

"Babe!"

The marvel of modern technology never ceases to make him grateful, because Zayn is across the globe right now, all the way past the date line, but his voice comes out clear. Tired, and a whole day away, but clear.

"Jaan."

Liam will never not love this man. "You okay? How are ya?"

"Alright. I'm alright. How are you?"

"Good. Great, now. What's up?"

"On my way to the hotel. Just thought I'd give ya a ring."

Liam doesn't know what time it is there. He has a global weather app on his phone that keeps track of it for him, but he can't check it now. He used to know these things off the top of his head, memorize them for however long Zayn was gone, because knowing it for himself felt important for some reason. It's been a few years and a few too many punches to the head since then.

"Glad you did, mate. Did they just let you out, then? It's late, isn't it?"

"Early," Zayn corrects, voice gone muzzy for a moment like he's not quite yawning.

"The photographer was okay? John or whatever."

"Jean. Yeah, it was okay. Just, like, more than I thought. We were on three locations today."

Liam frowns and waves away Niall's attempt to rope and pull him onto the dance floor via the power of mime. "Three today? When did you get in?"

"'S alright. It was good. I think it went good. Weather was nice, like. Clothes were a bit shit, though."

"When did you get in, babe?"

"This morning."

"What time is it there?" He pulls the phone away from his ear to pull up the app, because the likelihood of Zayn actually telling him is pretty damn slim. And so far as he knows the app's never lied to him before, but three in the morning can't be right.

"It's three?"

Zayn sighs and the sound of his breath rushes over the microphone to create a cloud of static in Liam's head. "It's fine. I'm almost at the hotel. Someone at the shoot mentioned Thursday, though. Shooting more on Thursday."

He's not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. Liam gets time zones, but the date line thing has always confounded him. "That's Wednesday for me?"

"It's Wednesday for you now, babe."

Oh. Right. Liam blames the three drinks. "So… what? Friday for me? They can't keep you 'til Friday."

"I don't know. Someone just mentioned it. They weren't even talking to me."

"Did you ask?"

"I'm gonna call Marcy. I swear it was just to Thursday there, but they mighta been using local time? I'm gonna call tomorrow."

Liam wants to make his demand more of a demand – they cannot keep Zayn until Friday, Friday is the bout – but Zayn has as much control over this as Liam does. "Let me know. I'm not –" He pushes a hand over his hair and takes the opportunity of the door swinging open to duck out. "I'll be upset if you can't be there but I won't be mad at you, yeah?"

"Yeah, I know." Zayn laughs, all soft and sweet and tired, and Liam thinks that they shouldn't have him even tomorrow. Screw contractual obligations. No one deserves to get treated like that, least of all Zayn. "You should fly in. Flex your biceps at 'em. They'd let me go in a heartbeat."

"I like that. Can I throw you over my shoulder, too? Do the whole neanderthal thing."

"Sure. Yeah. Drag me by my hair. Swim us home, too."

Liam paces, slow, just to keep his blood moving, just so that the guys smoking can't hear every word. "Saves on airfare. I like it."


	7. Gods & Spirits

Harry, the literal embodiment of love. Last time Zayn saw him was in the nineteen sixties on America's west coast, living with a group of hippies and leading meditations on the inner self. Now he's writing best-selling self-help books and appearing on talk show programs, being charming and earnest and lovely. He's good at adapting.

Louis, who in his greatest age lived in a golden doored temple where his young, gauze-draped acolytes took offerings of wine and bathed visitors in sacred smoke. There's still a whiff of it about him even now, of pine and musk. He looks good. Healthy. A little soft around the middle. Why not? It's another age of indulgence, or so they say.

Niall, the forest spirit, the trickster. He's a saint these days. That is to say, some version of him was sainted during darker ages and he gets by under the power of that guise, serene and serious when carved in stone, although given perhaps too frequently to appearing in visions and performing small miracles. All those sad looking ladies in bread are his, although he swears not all of them are the virgin mother. That last one was very clearly Beyoncé.

Liam, whose strength was called upon for millennia by soldiers and victims, who is still relevant in war torn places, in shelled cities and armed insurgencies and silent, candle-lit protests. Liam who will probably outlive all of them, live until the last two people exist on earth, as solid and unchanging as the moon.

Zayn made do for so many long centuries with wandering palaces and other gods' temples, anywhere an application and appreciation of beauty could be found. He likes the studios now more than the museums, likes open mic nights and slam poetry readings and hooded figures with their bags of spray paint moving in the dark. Small, meaningful offerings to a god of beauty and creation.

It's been going on fifty years now since Zayn saw Harry. It's been longer since he's seen any the rest of them. Centuries since their last meet-up. No one looks particularly worse for wear, although Liam looks him over and his eyes soften with an unwelcome concern. So he's gone a little thinner than the last time they say each other. It's hardly reason for worry. Emaciated has been rather in these past few decades. He is beauty, he doesn't dictate what the modern interpretation of that is.

"I'm telling you," Niall says, checking his appearance in the mirror, "you're missing out on this saint gig." He's a blonde right now, young and handsome and cheeky by necessity. He seems to be enjoying it.

Louis rolls his eyes. "Saintliness isn't really my area of expertise, is it?" He sits down on the arm of the couch beside Harry and drapes himself partially along its back, sleek and satisfied as a house cat.

"How many prayers do you get a day?" Liam asks.

"How many do you get?" Niall returns.

Liam can only shake his head. It's been busy times for Liam, although it usually is. Better not to know the details, really. "Enough."


End file.
